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1 Volume 5 June

2 The International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching is a free, open access publication from the Christian English Language Educators Association (CELEA, see an international, non-profit association for those in English language teaching. The IJC&ELT is also supported by the Department of Applied Linguistics and TESOL in the Cook School of Intercultural Studies at Biola University in La Mirada, California. Visit for more information. The IJC&ELT gratefully acknowledges this support. The IJC&ELT acronym logo and cover page title were designed by Daniel McClary (Daniel.McClary@Millersville.edu), of Millersville University of Pennsylvania, on behalf of CELEA. This service to the IJC&ELT is appreciated CELEA and individual contributors. All rights reserved. International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching Volume 5 (June 2018) edited by Bradley Baurain & Michael Pasquale The editors express their appreciation to all the referees who volunteered their time and expertise in reading, interacting with, and evaluating the manuscripts they received. We are also grateful for Michael Lessard-Clouston s layout and proofreading work on Vol. 5. Typeset in Times New Roman ISSN (online)

3 International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching ISSN (online) Volume 5, June 2018 Table of Contents Table of Contents About the IJC&ELT Information for Contributors i ii iii Editorial: A Turn to the Theological in Christian TESOL? Bradley Baurain 1 Articles Vocation in the Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection on Christian Service and Secular Academics Don Snow 4 Reflections on Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication for Teachers Course Michael Lessard-Clouston 18 Reviews Teach Like a Disciple: Exploring Jesus Instructive Relationships from an Educational Perspective Jillian Nerhus Lederhouse Reviewed by Polly Treviño 40 Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies Marilyn Chandler McEntyre Reviewed by Emanuel Padilla 42 Dangerous Territory: My Misguided Quest to Save the World Amy Peterson Reviewed by Dani Shepard 44 Reflecting on Critical Incidents in Language Education: 40 Dilemmas for Novice TESOL Professionals Thomas S. C. Farrell and Laura Baecher Reviewed by Marilyn Lewis 47 Resilience: Bouncing Back through English R. Michael Medley Reviewed by Robin Gingerich 49

4 About the International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching The International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching (IJC&ELT) is the official journal of the Christian English Language Educators Association (CELEA, see and is supported by the Department of Applied Linguistics & TESOL at Biola University ( It publishes articles and reviews related to English Language Teaching (ELT), with a perspective of particular interest to Christians, and specifically Christian English language educators. The mandate of the IJC&ELT (ISSN , online) includes the following aims: to publish articles and reviews related to ELT, using a Christian perspective to stimulate the integration of the Christian faith and learning and teaching in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) to encourage and thus promote critical reflection, discussion, engaging theory, excellent research, and inspirational practice in applied linguistics and TESOL to provide an international approach to English language teaching and research to offer an open access forum that shares knowledge and applies high academic standards, including double blind peer review As an international publication, the IJC&ELT recognizes that there are diverse Christian traditions and perspectives throughout the world and it therefore welcomes articles and reviews that deal with and address different Christian traditions and their connections to English language teaching. The main readership, however, is CELEA members, who themselves come from and bring a range of Christian perspectives to their work in ELT. IJC&ELT Editorial Board Editors Bradley Baurain, Moody Theological Seminary and Graduate School, U.S.A. Michael D. Pasquale, Cornerstone University, U.S.A. Editorial Review Board William R. Acton, Trinity Western University, Canada Charles M. Browne, Meiji Gakuin University, Japan A. Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A. Jan Edwards Dormer, Messiah College, U.S.A. Zoltán Dörnyei, University of Nottingham, U.K. Dana R. Ferris, University of California, Davis, U.S.A. Xuesong (Andy) Gao, University of New South Wales, Australia Icy Lee, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Michael Lessard-Clouston, Biola University, U.S.A. Marilyn Lewis, University of Auckland, New Zealand June Yichun Liu, National Chengchi University, Taiwan R. Michael Medley, Eastern Mennonite University, U.S.A. Herbert C. Purnell, Biola University, U.S.A. David I. Smith, Calvin College, U.S.A. Don B. Snow, Duke Kunshan University, China Frank Tuzi, Liberty University, U.S.A. Mary Shepard Wong, Azusa Pacific University, U.S.A. ii

5 Information for Contributors Aims and Scope The International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching (ISSN , online) is an international peer reviewed open access journal that publishes quality empirical, practical, review, and theoretical papers covering a broad range of issues in English language teaching and research. IJC&ELT is thus an interdisciplinary forum, publishing both original research and teaching articles, as well as stimulating reflections and reviews of interest to Christians and others in TESOL. It aims to provide an international forum for established and emerging teachers, researchers, and others committed to ELT from a Christian point of view. Audience The International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching is primarily intended for use in the academic community, especially for members of the Christian English Language Educators Association (CELEA, see its sponsor. Yet IJC&ELT s interdisciplinary nature also makes it accessible and of interest to educators of various types (including teacher trainers and those working with English language learners), curriculum developers and materials writers, Christian organizations concerned about language issues, and other interested practitioners, researchers, and theorists. Focus and Format With the above audience and policies below in mind, the focus of the International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching is primarily on, though not restricted to, the following areas of inquiry, practice, and thinking in English language teaching: applied linguistics and language and culture learning and teaching classroom and other best practices in TESOL design and development of EFL/EIL/ELL/ESL/ESP curricula and materials ELT skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and methodologies innovations in teaching and learning English as a second/foreign language TESOL teacher education, research, and training theory and practice in second/foreign language learning and teaching As an international publication whose primary audience is Christian English language educators and other interested parties, all contributions should approach the focus or topic at hand recognizing a Christian point of view, though readers realize that this may be more detailed or obvious in some cases and yet may appear less so in other instances. Submissions may be drawn from relevant presentations (CELT or other conferences, for example) or reflect classroom practices, research, or reviews of potential interest to IJC&ELT readers. The journal includes four distinct sections: Articles reports of empirical studies, review papers or meta-analyses, theoretical position papers, etc. These should not exceed 7,000 words, including references. In the Classroom descriptions of teaching activities or techniques, classroom action research, etc., within a relevant theoretical framework, not to exceed 4,000 words. Forum position papers or reactions to articles or reviews, opinion or viewpoint articles, or reports, interviews, or commentary on current topics of interest. These submissions should also not exceed 4,000 words, including references. iii

6 Reviews evaluative book, materials, and software reviews relevant to IJC&ELT readers. These will not usually exceed 1,500 words, including references. Policies In order to reach the widest readership possible, the International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching is published online through the IJC&ELT website ( where editorials, articles, reviews, and other relevant communications are freely downloadable in the form of PDF files. CELEA members, libraries, or other readers may print out the complete issue file for themselves. If there is interest and demand, in the future we may offer hard copy issues through a print-on-demand publisher. Given that the focus is English language teaching, the language of the journal is English. Initially the frequency of issues will be one per year, with the hope that this may increase, assuming a sufficient quantity of quality contents that pass blind peer review. Preference will be given to articles and reviews that make clear, helpful, and fresh contributions to the field of ELT within a Christian perspective, broadly conceived. Articles, advertisements, and reviews do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the editors, editorial review board, or CELEA. Submissions may be made by readers around the world. Accepted papers and reviews will be approved by the editors and at least two additional readers, as appropriate for the IJC&ELT based on their contributions, originality, and relevance. Articles and reviews shall conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style, 6 th ed.). Authors who publish in the IJC&ELT retain copyright of their work, enabling the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of their article or review in any medium, provided that they formally cite the original publication in the International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching. Manuscripts must not have been previously published or currently submitted for review at another journal. Authors should inform the editors if related research or a similar version of their manuscript has been published or is under consideration elsewhere. Authors will not be paid for articles or reviews; neither will they be charged publication fees. Authors, like readers, may freely download and print as many copies of their work in IJC&ELT as desired. Submissions Contributions should be in the form of Word documents submitted as attached files at IJCELT.Editors@gmail.com. Manuscripts which do not conform to the guidelines in the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association (6 th edition, 2010) may not be sent for external review. The IJC&ELT welcomes articles from both native- and non-native English speakers, yet requests that ideas in submissions be expressed clearly for a broad, international audience. Authors are responsible for fluent language use, as well as for the accuracy of any data, references, or citations they incorporate into their work. Obtaining permission to incorporate any previously copyrighted material is the author s responsibility. The editors reserve the right to make minor editing changes without prior consultation with authors. Major editing or revisions, however, will only be done in consultation with authors. Please see IJC&ELT s website, for the latest information about the journal. We value your contributions, prayers, and readership. iv

7 , pp ISSN (online) 1 Editorial: A Turn to the Theological in Christian TESOL? Bradley Baurain When we invited Zoltán Dörnyei to be the plenary speaker earlier this year at the Christians in English Language Teaching (CELT 2018) Conference in Chicago, I expected his topic to be something on motivation, psychology, or group dynamics. He is, after all, a wellknown and widely-published expert in these areas. Instead, he proposed Vision, Mental Imagery and the Christian Life, a topic that wove together theology, the social sciences, ministry, and teaching. During his talk, we were held spellbound. In recent years, there appears to have been a welcome turn to the theological in Christian TESOL, that is, in both publications and conference presentations more attention is being given to deepening the theological foundations of what we do. Values such as service, love, and professional excellence have over the years been well promoted and explored, but there is a need for more. We often say, There is no such thing as a Christian teaching method, but at times this tends to derail us from thinking about other possible distinctives. If God created us to learn, and if he created the world about which we learn (including language), then it stands to reason that Christian researchers and practitioners will see many issues differently compared to those with other worldviews. These differences may not be appreciated by the TESOL mainstream, but they need to be developed within our own professional community, otherwise we risk merely putting a light Christian frosting on what is essentially a secular cake. At the very least, if TESOL is to be a ministry that serves the global church for example, in the area of English for Bible and Theology (EBT) the work of developing a more robust theology for our discipline must continue. Now might be a good time for this refocusing, in that TESOL in general seems largely uninterested in spiritual and religious issues. Bill Johnston s (2017) English Teaching and Evangelical Mission: The Case of Lighthouse School, for example reviewed by Mary Shepard Wong in the previous volume (No. 4) of this journal surely the most in-depth research to date in this area, has attracted slight attention and sparked little response outside of evangelical circles. One hopes the forthcoming Spirituality in English Language Teaching, edited by Mary Shepard Wong and Ahmar Mahboob (2018), will be more widely read and discussed.

8 A prime example of the turn to the theological is Thinking Theologically about Language Teaching, edited by Cheri Pierson and Will Bankston (2017). [Full disclosure: I contributed a chapter.] Other good examples include work by Dormer and Woelk (2018), Hibbs (2017), Pasquale and Bierma (2011), and the ongoing work at the What If Learning website ( In This Issue The fifth volume of this journal also reflects this turn to the theological, particularly in its two main articles. First, Don Snow has contributed a slightly edited version of his plenary address at the 2017 Christians in English Language Teaching (CELT) Conference in Seattle. Entitled Vocation in the Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection on Christian Service and Secular Academics, it non-prescriptively explores the place of research within a teacher s ministry. Second, Michael Lessard-Clouston has written an article entitled Reflections on Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication for Teachers Course. Although I did not cite him above, he has also been very much a part of the trend toward more in-depth theological thinking in our field (see, for example, Lessard-Clouston 2012, 2017). the journal: In addition to these two excellent articles, there are five books reviewed in this issue of Teach Like a Disciple: Exploring Jesus Instructive Relationships from an Educational Perspective, by Jillian Nerhus Lederhouse. (Reviewed by Polly Treviño) Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre. (Reviewed by Emanuel Padilla) Dangerous Territory: My Misguided Quest to Save the World, by Amy Peterson. (Reviewed by Dani Shepard) Reflecting on Critical Incidents in Language Education: 40 Dilemmas for Novice TESOL Professionals, by Thomas S. C. Farrell and Laura Baecher. (Reviewed by Marilyn Lewis) Resilience: Bouncing Back through English, by R. Michael Medley. (Reviewed by Robin Gingerich) This is the first volume of the journal that I have co-edited, and I am definitely still learning the ropes. I am grateful not only to my co-editor, Michael Pasquale, but also to the previous, founding editor, Michael Lessard-Clouston, who has been invaluable in helping shepherd this issue to actual publication. As we look to the future, some of the issues we are Baurain (2018) Editorial: A Turn to the Theological in Christian TESOL? 2

9 considering include how to attract additional high-quality submissions, a new Internet home, and the possibility of advance online publication of forthcoming content. We welcome your input to these discussions, as well as your submissions! In the meantime, read and enjoy. References Dormer, J. E., & Woelk, C. (2018). Teaching English for reconciliation: Pursuing peace through transformed relationships in language learning and teaching. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library. Hibbs. P. T. (2017). A theological critique of learner autonomy. International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching, 4, Johnston, B. (2017). English teaching and evangelical mission: The case of Lighthouse School. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Lessard-Clouston, M. (2012). Seven biblical themes for language learning. Evangelical Missions Quarterly, 48, Lessard-Clouston, M. (2017). Biblical themes for Christians in language teaching. In C. L. Pierson & W. Bankston (Eds.), Thinking theologically about language teaching (pp. 7-28). Cumbria, UK: Langham Global Library. Pasquale, M., & Bierma, N. L. K. (2011). Every tribe and tongue: A biblical vision for language in society. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications. Pierson, C. L., & Bankston, W. (Eds.). (2017). Thinking theologically about language education: Christian perspectives on an educational calling. Cumbria, UK: Langham Global Library. Wong, M. S., & Mahboob, A. (Eds.). (2018). Spirituality in English language teaching: Religious explorations of teacher identity, pedagogy and context. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Bradley Baurain (bbaurain@gmail.com) is an Associate Professor of TESOL at Moody Theological Seminary and Graduate School in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. He is the author of Religious Faith and Teacher Knowledge in English Language Teaching (Cambridge Scholars, 2015) and articles in publications such as ELT Journal, the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, TESL-EJ, and TESOL Journal. For details, visit his site at Baurain (2018) Editorial: A Turn to the Theological in Christian TESOL? 3

10 , pp ISSN (online) 4 Vocation in the Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection on Christian Service and Secular Academics Don Snow Duke Kunshan University Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, China Abstract This paper was originally presented in March 2017 at the plenary session of the Christians in English Language Teaching (CELT) conference at Seattle Pacific University. Dr. Snow reflects on the importance of academic research at different stages of his career as a TESOL educator. He encourages all Christians in TESOL to reflect and consider their own calling and the place of academic research. Key words: vocation, academic research, professional development Introduction The specific issue I will talk about today has to do with academic research in the lives of Christian English teachers. This is obviously most relevant to those of us who teach in universities and, to a greater or lesser degree, are in a world where we may face at least some pressure to engage in research and publishing. But underlying this is the larger issue of vocation, which is relevant to all Christian English teachers and all Christians. For many of the things we do in our teaching lives, it is fairly easy to see how they overlap with various aspects of Christian mission and calling. For example, through our work as English teachers we often have the opportunity to serve students, including many who are relatively disadvantaged in one way or another. We also have many opportunities to be a witness for our faith, either directly and explicitly or indirectly through the example we present in our lives. We have the opportunity to engage in peace-building by teaching skills that help students interact more smoothly and harmoniously with people from other countries and cultures. And I could go on for quite a long time about these perhaps even a book I suppose my real point here is that we are quite blessed to be in a profession where so many aspects of our daily work can and do overlap with our calling as Christians in such clear ways. However, when it comes to academic research, finding such overlaps can be more challenging, especially if you are doing research on a topic that has little or nothing to do with Christian faith. The problem arises as we need to make decisions about competing priorities in

11 our professional and personal lives how much time should we spend on what? Should I spend large amounts of time on a research and publication project that doesn t seem to have any particular tie to Christian mission? Shouldn t I devote as much time as possible to tasks that will clearly and fairly quickly produce positive outcomes related to the Christian faith, to making the world a better place, and/or improving the lives of our students? Here I want to make the issue sharper by taking you on a short detour into one part of my research life, talking with you a little about diglossia and the rise of written Chinese vernaculars. Bear with me. You may remember the term diglossia from a sociolinguistics course or textbook or perhaps not. The basic idea is that many societies are multilingual in the sense that more than one language plays a significant role in the life of the society, and one pattern often found in multilingual societies or at least that often used to be found is called diglossia. In a diglossic society, there are two (or possibly more) languages that play an important role. One of these, called the low language, is the language people normally speak in daily life at home, in the market, in daily work interactions. The other, called the high language, is a prestigious ancient language that is not used for normal conversation, but is used for formal occasions, perhaps religious rituals, and often in education. In a diglossic society, most or all reading and writing is done in the high language; in fact, the low language may not have a written form at all. This may all sound a little unfamiliar and perhaps even a bit weird because most modern societies are not diglossic; instead, many countries now have a national language that is used for both writing and speaking, and for both daily occasions and formal ones. One obvious example would be the United States, but there are many more examples around the world. However, if you look back a few centuries it is not hard to find diglossic societies; one thinks of pre-modern Europe in which people would live their daily lives in German, French, Hungarian and so forth, but when they entered the church or the university were suddenly in the domain of Latin (which only a small elite could understand). And Europe was more the rule than the exception many, if not most, pre-modern societies were diglossic. From a historical perspective, what happened is as pre-modern diglossic societies moved into the modern era, mass literacy became more important, and in order for print culture, education, and even a sense of national pride to develop most nations decided to de-throne ancient classical languages like Latin, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese, and replace them with a modern national language. Now, this process was actually a bit trickier than it sounds because in Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 5

12 most countries there were quite a few different candidates for the throne either different dialects of the most widely used vernacular language in the country or perhaps entirely different languages so one variety had to be picked, standardized and promoted. Often there was one candidate that was quite obviously ahead of the others, often because it already had a widely known written form and perhaps even some kind of literary tradition. For example, in China, the country I study most, even while Classical Chinese was still being used in the education system and in the imperial examinations (which went on right up until the early 1900s), there was also a variety of northern Chinese called Mandarin (guan hua) that had become the spoken lingua franca of government and was also widely used in popular literature, so in the early 1900s it was chosen as the new national language (Guo Yu). As you might imagine this process was not without controversy there were many other spoken forms of Chinese such as Suzhounese, Cantonese, and so forth and there was debate about whether or not the new national language should try to include these in some way. But essentially the others lost out and Mandarin became the new national language, promoted through the schools, print culture and so forth. I suppose you could say that what I do is study the losers the varieties of Chinese that didn t get chosen as the national language. Several of these languages, including Suzhounese and Cantonese, were used quite widely not only as spoken languages but also in writing, and what I study is how the written forms of these languages continued to grow or not even after Mandarin became the national language. This was probably not the smartest choice of research topic; it isn t considered especially hot or sexy, you have to spend a lot of time learning different varieties of Chinese, and then you need to spend even more time deciphering old texts in which the way they write Cantonese, Suzhounese or whatever isn t the same as how they speak it today. To top it off, you need to figure out how to write this up in English in a way that is intelligible and preferably even somewhat interesting to an audience that isn t already familiar with the written forms of Cantonese, Suzhounese, Shanghainese, and so forth. Does all of this have any tie to Christian faith or calling? Oddly, there are a few ways in which it does. As we all know, Christians (especially Protestants) are pretty obsessed with translating the Bible into heart languages local vernaculars and in China many missionaries spent a great deal of time translating the Bible into any different varieties of Chinese; in fact, for some varieties of Chinese about the only written text you can find is the Bible. But, to be honest, Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 6

13 in most of the history I study the missionaries don t play much of a role; in fact, once Mandarin was chosen as China s national language the missionaries quickly produced a Union Version of the Bible in Mandarin and from that time one generally lost interest in translating texts into local Chinese dialects. I have taken you on this rather lengthy detour for three reasons. First, as is true with any academic, I spend a lot of time studying and writing about this stuff, but don t get many opportunities to talk about it imagine trying to strike up a conversation about diglossia at a potluck dinner and since I had a captive audience today I decided to take advantage of you. Second, I hope this has effectively made the point that there aren t a lot of obvious overlaps between this field of study and Christian mission. Finally, I hope it drives home the point that research involves a very substantial time commitment generally extending far beyond work hours and deeply into one s private life and personal time. Hence the question: From a Christian perspective, is it all worth it? In my remaining time I will disappoint you by not answering this question at least not in a universally applicable way. I really can t say whether doing research is a good use of time either generally or more specifically for you. But what I will do is talk about choices I have made in my own life what pressures I faced, what I decided to do, and why. Originally I planned to organize my talk around a long list of reasons why a Christian language teacher might want to consider doing research, kind of like my English Teaching as Christian Mission book (Snow, 2001), but I decided this talk will actually work better and perhaps be a little more interesting if I do it in a more biographical way. So I m going to talk about three chapters in my life when I have devoted a substantial amount of my time to research, and for each of these examine why I chose to do that. So, without further ado. Well, I guess we do need to start with a little bit of further ado. I should probably say a few words about the years I spent working with the Amity Foundation because most of what I have written that you may be familiar with dates from that period. From 1991 to 2011 I was a Mission Co-Worker with the Presbyterian Church USA, and from 1993 to 2003 I was seconded to a Chinese NGO called the Amity Foundation, founded by Protestant Chinese church leaders, where I worked with a project through which language teachers (English, Japanese, German) came from church bodies in many countries to work in regional teacher training colleges, mostly in second-tier cities, in China. It was during those years that I wrote the first edition of More Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 7

14 Than a Native Speaker (Snow, 1996), English Teaching as Christian Mission (Snow, 2001), a textbook published in China called Encounters with Westerners (Snow, 2000) and also an introductory Chinese textbook called Survival Chinese (Snow, 2002). Obviously this meant I spent a lot of my time writing, but I didn t feel any tension between the time I spent writing and my Christian mission calling because almost everything I wrote was intended to support and enhance the work of Christian English teachers, and often English teachers in general. That s probably all I need to say about that. Research and Me Chapter One The research issue really began to emerge for me more around 2011 as I was transitioning to a teaching position at Nanjing University. After ten years in an administrative position with Amity I wanted to get back into the classroom, so I negotiated with the Presbyterian Church about a new assignment, and the decision was made for me to go teach at Nanjing University (also serving as PC USA s Regional Liaison for China). One might think that moving into a faculty position at a top Chinese university would put pressure on me to become academically productive i.e., to do research and publish. However, it actually didn t, at least not directly. Predictably, the Presbyterian Church didn t really care if I did any academic research; in fact, they preferred that I use as much of my spare time as possible for my regional liaison role. More surprisingly, while Nanjing University was delighted to have a foreign professor with a doctorate who had written some books, they didn t have any direct interest in whether or not I did academic research, because as a foreign expert anything I published wasn t counted toward the department s publication total, presumably because they assumed foreign teachers were only short term guests anyway. So the choice of whether or not to do academic research was pretty much up to me, and life probably would have been easier if I had chosen not to do it after all, I had a pretty heavy teaching load, I was putting in a fair amount of time with local churches and Amity projects, and then there were those pesky PC USA administrative duties. But instead I chose to do a book on the history of written Cantonese (Snow, 2004), which had been my doctoral dissertation, and then a series of articles on diglossia (e.g., Snow, 2013a, 2013b). Why? Or, perhaps, what was I thinking? Honestly one reason was personal interest. I have long been fascinated by Chinese dialects and the history of their written forms, and I simply wanted to keep researching this topic. Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 8

15 I ve always had a feeling that this topic deserves more scholarly attention than it has gotten. I kept reading tantalizing brief comments in scholarly books to the effect that some Chinese dialects did in fact have written forms and traditions, but nobody seemed to have studied these much, and I wanted to help fill in these gaps. A second reason had to do with staying in shape professionally. At Nanjing University I was mainly teaching graduate students who were preparing for academic careers, and one of my tasks was to teach them how to do and write up research projects. I simply felt I could do a better job of this if I was active in research myself, actually doing what I was trying to teach them to do. However, there was a third reason I simply didn t feel right about taking an easy pass. As a foreigner I was exempt from pressure to publish, but my Chinese colleagues were not. In fact, one major change during the seven years I was at Nanjing University was a significant increase in the amount of pressure on Chinese university faculty to publish papers, and increasingly their promotion prospects and even salaries were tied to academic output. To some extent I did research because it helped me know how to help younger Chinese colleagues, many of whom faced real difficulties because they had never really been trained in academic research and had little idea what to do in response to pressure to publish. I also felt it supported my witness in the community, minimizing the chances that any positive witness my life presented would be dismissed because my colleagues could say, It s easy for him to find time to spend at St. Paul s because he doesn t have to devote time to research. But honestly for me the main issue was what we might call solidarity I felt I that as much as possible, as a member of that academic and professional community, I should subject myself the demands my colleagues faced; that this was part of earning my right to be a member of the community and to have a voice in it. So, during the seven years I was at Nanjing University, I consistently devoted part of my time to more purely academic research and publishing. I also continued to put quite a lot of time into more practical or applied kinds of writing, especially the second edition of More Than a Native Speaker (Snow, 2006) and then a sister version entitled From Language Learner to Language Teacher (Snow, 2007) that was geared toward the needs of beginning teachers who had learned English as a second language; in fact, I started on that book mainly because I was teaching an EFL pedagogy class and wanted to have something accessible and useful for my students. To put it another way, I felt that I should devote at least part of my writing time to projects that seemed to have an immediate applied purpose, which often coincided with one or Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 9

16 more of my agendas as a Christian English teacher. However, I also spent quite a bit of my writing time on purely academic projects like those I mentioned at the beginning of the talk. Research and Me Chapter Two By 2011 my wife and I had reached the 20-year point of service with PC USA, and also the point where we could officially retire from PC USA mission service (as opposed to simply leaving service). At that time the church was facing financial problems and the number of mission personnel was being cut back; also, there had been a review of mission priorities and it was clear that China was not going to be a high priority area. Also, around that time I was contacted by a university where I had taught in the 1980s, Shantou University in Guangdong Province, and they asked if I would be willing to direct the English Language Center there. One of the arguments the Shantou people made to me was that I would have more opportunity for impact as director of a fairly high profile center there than I would as a teacher at Nanjing University. So, after a fair amount of discussion and prayer we decided to retire from PC USA and move to Shantou, thus staying in China and perhaps allowing PC USA to keep one missionary couple somewhere else. As at Nanjing University, even though I was working at a university in Shantou there really wasn t much pressure on me to publish. In fact, the vice president to whom I reported made it quite clear that he wanted me to spend as much time as possible on administration of the English Language Center (ELC), and that he didn t think it was very important for Shantou University faculty to publish. So, at best you could say that the university tolerated my scholarly activities. (He has since changed his position, and now Shantou University faculty are under quite a lot of pressure to publish.) However, while at Shantou University I did choose to spend some of my time on academic research, and the reason mainly had to do with the earliermentioned impact argument. This is a little involved, so please be patient as I explain. I accepted the position in part because I felt this would be a good platform from which to have more impact on the English teaching profession in China and elsewhere, and perhaps an opportunity to promote one of the agendas discussed in the English Teaching as Christian Mission book, that of peace-building. If you have read that book you know that one way I think Christian teachers and foreign language teachers generally can contribute toward making a more peaceful world is through teaching intercultural communication skills. My argument is that Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 10

17 foreign language learning and intercultural communication are tightly intertwined in fact, one of the primary reasons one learns a foreign language is to communicate with people from other cultures. Also, the reality is that most students in China (and elsewhere) will never take a course in intercultural communication, but they will all spend years in English courses. So, why not spend some of that time in English courses learning how to communicate more effectively with people from other cultures? As mentioned earlier, during my years at Amity I had written a textbook called Encounters with Westerners (Snow, 2000) that was designed to give Chinese students the chance to build English language skills while also learning something about intercultural communication. The textbook was built around critical incident exercises that are intended to help students build good basic intercultural communication habits and skills. While I felt a little awkward about suggesting that we should require a textbook I had written, I eventually decided I was being a little silly nobody had much good to say about the culture textbook we were using at the time, and my textbook was designed precisely for situations like this. So, we decided to try it out. Also, about this time the publisher approached me to do a second edition of the book, and so there seemed to be good possibilities for synergy between the two efforts. Now, where does research come into all of this? As I mentioned, the textbook is built around critical incident exercises essentially stories in which a Chinese person meets a foreigner and a communication problem of some kind ensues perhaps the Chinese person can t understand why the foreigner turned down a gift or offer of help, doesn t understand why a Western teacher doesn t want to correct grammar errors, and so forth. After being presented with the story, the students task is to discuss the situation and come up with several possible explanations for what is going on. The basic theory behind this is that this kind of practice will get students into the habit of making interpretive judgements more mindfully and carefully when they are dealing with people from other cultures, and also get in the habit of stopping to think of several possible interpretations rather than automatically seizing on the first explanation that pops into their heads. Hopefully such habits will help these individual students reduce misunderstandings and possibly conflicts when they interact with foreigners and if we are really lucky all this might even contribute to world peace.well, maybe. There isn t much question in the intercultural communication profession about the value of critical incident exercises they are widely used and considered valuable (Snow, 2015). Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 11

18 However, if you search the intercultural communication literature you will find that it doesn t actually say much about the core part of the exercise the process by which we go about interpreting making sense of what other people do and say, and this made me a little uneasy. Here I was, requiring that all the students at Shantou University do these exercises based on the assumption that they were helpful, and I felt I needed to be able to explain more clearly what happens in people s heads as they make interpretive judgments about what foreigners or people in general say and do, and also to be able to explain clearly how these exercises could make a positive impact on the intercultural competence of learners. All of which is a rather long way of saying that during my time at Shantou I took something of a detour into the world of psychology, where I was able to find people who did research on how the mind works and how we make interpretive judgments. In particular, I had to learn a fair amount about what are called dual process views of human thinking that examine not only conscious thought but also subconscious, what are often called System 1 (subconscious) and System 2 (conscious) modes of thinking. While I am not remotely qualified to do actual research on how the human mind works, I did spend a fair amount of time taking findings from the field of psychology and applying them to what happens in intercultural encounters, and wrote several articles about this. (Two are now out and another that should presumably see the light of day later this year.) Perhaps more important, as I worked on the second edition of the textbook I felt I better understood what I was trying to teach, and more confident that what I was advocating was actually helpful. Candidly, while my earlier reference to contributing to world peace was a bit tongue in cheek, actually underneath my normal joking exterior I am deadly and passionately earnest about this. One of the most important and volatile relationships in the world today is the one between China and the United States, and the more Chinese who can and do work to make sense of the US and its citizens in thoughtful nuanced ways, the less chance there is of conflict between our people and nations. Of course, precisely the same thing is true for Americans in how they look at China. If this textbook can help a few thousand Chinese university students and perhaps a hundred or so American teachers learn to think in more nuanced and careful ways about the neighbor across the Pacific, I will feel I have contributed at least a bit to our mission to be builders and preservers of peace. Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 12

19 Research and Me Chapter Three After completing my three-year contract at the Shantou University ELC I decided to move to a new position at Duke Kunshan University (DKU). A full accounting of the reasons might be somewhat entertaining but it would take far too long, so let s just say that the prospect of helping set up a new university in China was simply too appealing to resist. The background story is that for several years Duke University, the city of Kunshan (right outside Shanghai) and Wuhan University had been planning to start a joint venture liberal arts university based on the Duke model, and I was invited to help set up the language training programs the EAP courses for Chinese students and the Chinese courses for international students, faculty and staff. So, in 2014 we packed our bags and headed to Kunshan. As you can imagine Duke University is a place where research and publication definitely are high priority, so for the first time in my life I am now working in a place where research is supported, academic output is expected, and publication is a big item in our annual evaluations. However, to be completely honest, I could probably get by without publishing very much. I do have an administrative role as well as a teaching one, and everyone understands that administrative jobs tend to have a significant negative effect on academic output. Also, candidly, I m getting pretty close to retirement, so I could probably find a way to run out the clock. So, the question of whether or not to do academic research actually is still a real one for me and often quite difficult because my teaching and administrative work take up all of the working day and then some, so it is not easy to find the extra time to keep research and writing projects going. So, the why question is still very much with me. For this current period in my career, let me offer two very different answers to that question. The first one is a little convoluted, and also quite specific to where I am now and one set of issues I work on. I ve already mentioned that I study how written forms of local Chinese vernaculars develop historically, and I m currently working with a little team to study the history of Suzhounese and also Shanghainese as written languages. I find this quite interesting, but it is also enormously expensive in terms of time investment because I have to spend so much time learning to read and even speak two more varieties of Chinese. It would be much, much easier to keep writing about English teaching or even intercultural communication. So, what was I thinking? Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 13

20 Here I need us to step back and look at the big picture. The whole reason that Duke Kunshan University exists is that the Chinese government feels American higher education is superior to that offered even in top Chinese universities, and China is willing to have such an institution on its soil not only as a showcase through which Chinese universities can be exposed to new ideas about higher education but also bluntly as something of a prod that will push them to more quickly reform and work toward international standards. The danger here, as I see it, is that this fairly specific mission often gets wrapped into a larger narrative, one in which Chinese people see the United States as a somewhat unfriendly competitor that flaunts its superiority. Keep in mind that we run an American-style education program all conducted in English, and that the rationale for us being here is that our approach to education is assumed to be better, so it would be quite easy for students and the community to take the logical next step and assume that we Americans think that China is simply inferior. Of course DKU tries to counteract this impression by saying nice things about Chinese culture, food, and host of other things, but bluntly talk is cheap and it is not very convincing unless the Chinese community sees DKU as really investing effort in learning about China. I thus see our little research project not only as a way to learn about history and get a paper or two published. It is also concrete evidence of genuine interest in an aspect of China and its culture, powerful in part precisely because it is expensive. It is also a vehicle for getting more students both international and Chinese interested in the rich cultural traditions of the Jiangnan region. Actually this project is part of a broader set of activities, such as our Kun Opera Club, that try to engage our students with local culture and give them opportunities to learn about it. Of course I invest time in this mainly because I think it is a good learning experience for students, but I am also aware that if DKU is going to have a positive impact on the US-China relationship, it is important that we be publically seen as being interested in learning from China, as well as from the US. The second answer has a lot to do with fellow Christian, language teacher, and writer Marilyn Lewis, who some of you probably know. A few years ago I remember her telling me that, at this point in my career, it was time to devote more time and energy to mentoring younger colleagues. That probably should have been obvious to me, but it actually wasn t, and up to that point I had always done my research and writing on my own rather than collaborating with others. But what she said made me think, and I eventually realized she was right. Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 14

21 I guess I had always seen that, as teachers, we are also in many ways shepherds for our student flocks, but it hit me that as I got older, and especially as I took on administrative and leadership roles, my flock also included my colleagues, especially younger ones just getting started in the profession. And for my younger colleagues in the Language and Culture Center at DKU, there are two things I worry about: The first is that, as is true in many universities, many of the language teachers don t have doctorates and aren t actually required to do research. Now, for some of them this is probably fine they are quite happy focusing on their teaching and don t really have much interest in doctorates, research, or advancement to higher academic ranks. But the danger is that some young language teachers who actually do have a long term interest in such things get lulled into a sense of security by the fact that they don t face immediate pressure to publish, so they tend to wait until they have more time before doing getting involved in projects. Of course, the problem is that nobody ever has more time, and there is real danger of waiting too long. The other thing I worry about is that young faculty won t find a research area they truly find interesting and rewarding. I know more than a few young language teachers who get an MA, then teach for a few years, and then decide to get a doctorate because they know it will be helpful for their careers. So, they get into a program, wind up doing a dissertation in some area that was suggested by an advisor because it is a good one for getting papers published. So, they do the dissertation, graduate, and then realize they need to keep publishing because they want to keep getting promoted. The problem is that they do research and publish mainly because this is part of climbing the career ladder not because it to improves their teaching, satiates their curiosity or makes the world a better place. My hope is that I can help younger colleagues find ways to continue growing as professionals and academics - and find ways that are exciting, satisfying and seem to have real purpose. All of which is a rather long way of saying that now one of the main reasons I start projects is to engage younger colleagues. Last year I had the pleasure of working with two of my colleagues on a project where we interviewed Chinese students about the strategies they used for building their English speaking skills which is interesting in part because middle school and university English classes in China normally don t focus on speaking much since it isn t tested on standardized English examinations. Also, when I was asked about doing a third edition of More Than a Native Speaker (Snow & Campbell, 2017) I brought in another young colleague, Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 15

22 Maxi-Ann Campbell (who some of you will probably meet at the TESOL convention), mainly because I needed her help with the internet world of the 21 st century but also because I thought that working on a book would be a good experience for her. And now, as mentioned earlier, I am working with two other colleagues on a project to map the history of how Suzhounese and Shanghainese have developed as written languages. Of course, I m not sure my colleagues get as excited about the particular questions we study as I do, but at least they gain some valuable experience and sometimes perhaps also encounter topics and ideas that do lead them into areas they find exciting. For several years after graduation from college I considered going to seminary and perhaps becoming a pastor. Now it has dawned on me that, in a rather different way, I really am a pastor with a wonderful flock that includes not only my students but also my colleagues. Candidly, it probably would be easier and faster to keep doing research and writing projects on my own. But bringing in colleagues has been wonderfully satisfying and I have no plans to revert to my earlier solo mode. Marilyn was right. Conclusion Clearly, I don t have a universal answer to the question of why Christian educators might engage in academic research, and in my own life the answers have varied enormously depending on where I taught, where I was in my career, and a host of other factors. As you have seen, sometimes the reasons I have engaged in research had to do with to relatively practical concerns, such as being in solidarity with colleagues as they face pressure to publish, helping younger colleagues move forward in their careers, or simply staying in shape myself as a teacher. At other times I have been driven more by what we might call big issue concerns such as the desire to make a contribution to better intercultural understanding and even better relationships between China and the US. However, for all of these, at least part of my motivation came from what I perceive to be my calling as a Christian who teaches languages in a university setting, and I feel each is part of my Christian vocation or mission. In conclusion, my intent today really isn t to issue some kind of clarion call for all Christian English teachers to drop everything else and dive into research. What I have shared today is my sense of what I am called to do in my particular work setting and stage in life. However, it would also be fair to say that I think at least some of us, especially those in Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 16

23 university environments, should be engaged in research. But, my main desire was simply to share my own experience and sense of calling, one that is probably a little unusual but also gives me a sense that I am, if only imperfectly, being a faithful steward of the opportunities God has given me. May we all go in peace today and keep listening to discern what God s call is for us wherever we live and work. References Snow, D. (1996). More than a native speaker: An introduction for volunteers teaching abroad. Alexandria, VA: TESOL International Association. Snow, D. (2000). Encounters with Westerners: Improving skills in English and intercultural communication. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Snow, D. (2002). Survival Chinese. Beijing: Commercial Press of China. Snow, D. (2004). Cantonese as written language: The growth of a written Chinese vernacular. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Snow, D. (2006). More than a native speaker: An introduction to teaching English abroad (Revised ed.). Alexandria, VA: TESOL International Association. Snow, D. (2007). From language learner to language teacher: An introduction to teaching English as a foreign language. Alexandria, VA: TESOL International Association. Snow, D. (2013a). Revisiting Ferguson s defining cases of diglossia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 34, doi: / Snow, D. (2013b). Towards a theory of vernacularisation: Insights from written Chinese vernaculars. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 34, doi: / Snow, D. (2015). English teaching, intercultural competence, and critical incident exercises. Language and Intercultural Communication, 15, doi: / Snow, D., & Campbell, M.-A. (2017). More than a native speaker: An introduction to teaching English abroad (3 rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: TESOL Press. Snow, D. B. (2001). English teaching as Christian mission: An applied theology. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press. Don Snow (don.snow@dukekunshan.edu.cn) holds an MA in English/TESOL from Michigan State University and a PhD in East Asian language and culture from Indiana University. He taught language, culture, and linguistics in China for many years as a Mission Co-Worker of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and has worked with a number of English teaching organizations. At present he is Director of the Language and Culture Center at Duke Kunshan University. Snow (2018) Vocation in The Ivory Tower: A Personal Reflection 17

24 , pp ISSN (online) 18 Reflections on Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication for Teachers Course Michael Lessard-Clouston Biola University La Mirada, California, U.S.A Abstract Christians teaching English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) address cultural issues to improve students intercultural communication. In reflecting on my experience delivering a teacher training course, this article describes strategies for incorporating seven virtues in an Intercultural Communication for Teachers class. It first outlines foundational background and then offers examples of ways students in the course may go deeper with Christian virtues in their reflection and in their ESL/EFL teaching. It also introduces Scriptures and relevant resources that may be useful to professors involved in teacher training and to teachers who wish to incorporate virtues into ESL/EFL classes. Key words: culture, intercultural communication, teacher training, values, virtues Introduction During a week-long faculty seminar on Christian approaches to ethics, I learned about important options, including virtue ethics (e.g., Roberts, 2007). As an English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) educator and teacher trainer, I was particularly interested in how virtue ethics could inform my teaching, especially in a course I teach each spring entitled Intercultural Communication for Teachers. In this article I reflect on how I integrate virtues into that course, and introduce Scriptures and varied resources of interest. Understandably, this is a work in progress. Yet in line with Davis and Wadell s (2016) approach to educating for lives of Christian wisdom (p. 95), I hope to see my students in this course reorient their understanding of intercultural communication in light of seven virtues. The context for the course is a private Christian university in the United States. Intercultural Communication for Teachers (hereafter ICC for Ts) is primarily geared toward students in an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program, but it is also cross-listed for upper undergraduates, some of whom complete it as part of their preservice teacher training or as one course in an undergraduate TESOL certificate. While many of the graduate students have teaching experience, a few undergraduates in the class have mostly completed teacher observations and may not yet have any actual teaching experience. Students

25 who complete the course and program most often teach English to adults abroad, though many also do so in North America. With this context in mind, let me turn to foundational background on intercultural communication, virtues, and education, before reflecting on incorporating seven virtues in the ICC for Ts course. Intercultural Communication and Virtues As Zhu (2014) declares, intercultural communication is an umbrella term that includes both interactions between people of different cultures and comparative studies of communication patterns between people of different cultures (p. 114). Among the six broad strands with which the field of intercultural communication usually concerns itself, two that Zhu (2014) discusses are especially relevant to virtues as we consider them for my ICC for Ts course: cultural values and language learning and teaching. The first strand deals with cultural values, 1 as reflected in early analyses by scholars such as Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) and in Hofstede s (2001) more recent work, which deals with five cultural dimensions that may impact communication styles. Lingenfelter and Mayers (2016) offer a basic values orientation to six patterns of behaviour, and suggest that Christians should take an incarnational approach to adapting and responding to different cultures. While cultural values approaches are sometimes criticized as theoretical (Jaupaj, 2012), in other cases they are viewed as potentially essentializing and/or overgeneralizing the myriad complexities of culture. Yet virtually all intercultural communication textbooks and courses introduce and discuss key cultural values such as individualism verses collectivism, high versus low power distance, and long- versus short-term orientation (Hofstede, 2001). One resource I have used to address such issues in intercultural communication is Stringer and Cassiday s (2003) collection of more than 50 activities to help both individuals and groups understand value differences across languages and cultures. Yet this cultural values approach is also relevant to comparative studies of communication patterns across cultures, as reflected in Wang s (2012) summary of Chinese and American cultural values from an intercultural communication perspective. It is important to note that virtues are significant values within a particular culture. Thus, helping ESL/EFL teachers and students to appreciate and understand cultural values may also assist them in discerning virtues in a culture either their own or another, different culture. 1 See Gallagher (2001) for a brief and easily accessible summary on cultural values approaches. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 19

26 Wang (2012) states, As the miniature of moral values, virtues refer to good qualities in human conduct, which perform as criteria of actions and have great influence on the value dimensions (p. 344). In my ICC for Ts course, we integrate Christian faith and learning and emphasize language use for constructive purposes (to bless, rather than to curse; e.g., Lessard-Clouston, 2017), so reflecting on Christian virtues in general, as well as in particular languages and cultures, may be useful in helping current and future teachers and their students understand different cultures values. The second intercultural communication strand from Zhu (2014) that is especially relevant is language learning and teaching, since all of the undergraduate and graduate students in the ICC for Ts course are either preparing to be ESL/EFL teachers or are already working part-time or full-time in this educational field. Years ago, Lado (1957) challenged such teachers to recognize and value the nature of and connections between language and culture in second and foreign language learning and teaching, and that view is not only still current, but even more influential and recognized by many in applied linguistics and TESOL. 2 Reflecting this emphasis, Hinkel (2014) declared, In language teaching, focusing on the inextricable connections between a culture and its language uses should be a key characteristic of effective instruction in all language skills (p. 395). Wintergerst and McVeigh s (2011) book, Tips for Teaching Culture: Practical Approaches to Intercultural Communication, is one of the required texts for the course, and a wonderful resource for ESL/EFL teachers and teachers-in-training. In its introductory chapter, it argues that language teachers should help students understand how culture works as it outlines Hofstede, Pedersen, and Hofstede s (2002) five dimensions of a culture: identity, hierarchy, social gender role, truth value, and virtue (Wintergerst & McVeigh, 2011, p. 16). Wintergerst and McVeigh (2011, p. 18) also note that the virtue dimension reflects what cultures value and stress. In short, language learning and teaching support the role of culture and intercultural communication for developing fluency in the target language, moving well beyond a simple multicultural manners approach to rules of etiquette (as, e.g., in Dresser, 2005). 2 Lessard-Clouston (2016) offers a recent survey of much of the empirical research in this area. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 20

27 Ethics, Virtues, and Principles for the Intercultural An important and seminal book by Bernard Adeney (1995), Strange Virtues: Ethics in a Multicultural World, offers some useful principles for thinking about ethics, virtues, and dealing with intercultural communication. 3 First, Adeney (1995) declares, Our cultural practices are not just personal or subjective; they are socially constituted (p. 14). As we relate to individuals from various language backgrounds and cultures in ESL/EFL, we must remember that language is social, and that our cultural practices teaching English are not simply individual and subjective, but social as well. Second, very often our human ethics and values tend toward absolutism or relativism, yet Adeney (1995) rightly states, As a Christian, I have no doubt that there are absolute values, but our understanding of them is always relative (p. 20). That quote reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13:12: Now I know in part. As we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), we also know that our understanding is impacted by the effects of sin. Third, Adeney (1995) believes we study ethics in order to become good, and goodness has two outstanding characteristics (p. 25). One is that despite important cultural differences in expressing goodness, qualities of character or virtue shine with clarity across cultures. The other is that all virtues and vices are made real in cultural forms (Adeney, 1995, p. 25). All people are created in the image of God, and Adeney reminds us that goodness may be recognized in different forms in all cultures. Fourth, Adeney (1995) states, As cultural beings, we can see goodness only as it is enfleshed in real times and places and peoples (p. 27). Context is therefore crucial in thinking about virtues in particular situations, especially because crosscultural ethics forces us to acknowledge that the form of goodness often lies not in an act itself but in the cultural meaning of the act (Adeney, 1995, p. 27). For students in ICC for Ts, therefore, it is important not only to examine context and relationships, but also the meaning of cultural acts as we reflect on Christian virtues and communicating through English. According to Adeney (1995), then, intercultural ethics is about doing good socially through correct cultural acts at the right time and specific place, with particular individuals in real life contexts. Helping students come to understand this is a goal of the ICC for Ts course. 3 While no doubt a full article could certainly be written on cross-cultural ethics, some principles that offer background for the ICC for Ts class will have to suffice here. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 21

28 Virtues and Education As a part of programs training teachers for classrooms, the ICC for Ts course is about preparing ESL/EFL teachers and helping them educate their students. 4 Accordingly, we should recognize recent research on the role of virtues and values in education. The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham, for example, studies practices for how character may be developed and virtues learned and taught in society. An important part of this effort is through education, with teachers central to such work. Arthur, Kristjánsson, Cooke, Brown, and Carr (2015) summarize a questionnaire and interview study of 546 new and experienced teachers and their views on virtues in education and teaching practice. In the interviews, Teachers confirmed that they frequently draw upon virtue-based reasoning in the classroom, especially in areas of moral or practical significance (Arthur et al., 2015, p. 5). However, due to heavy workloads, prescriptive educational systems, and narrow views of academic success, teachers also often reported that they are not always given the time in the workplace to reflect on the best way to practice moral virtues (Arthur et al., 2015, p. 5). One finding relevant to the present article is that teacher training programs spend very little time reflecting on the teaching of moral virtues (Arthur et al., 2015, p. 5). Perhaps more focus on virtues would therefore be valuable in courses like ICC for Ts. Closer to home, both Christian (e.g., Austin & Geivett, 2012; Dow, 2013) and secular (e.g., Ritchhart, 2015; Seider, 2012) writings have encouraged character development in education that involves virtues, in assisting students in thinking and in promoting academic success (see also Arthur, 2010a; 2010b). Baehr s (2015) e-book is geared toward practicing teachers and administrators, while Baehr s (2016) edited collection builds more theoretically on an earlier article on this topic (Baehr, 2013). One recent study by Yonker, Wielard, Vos, and Tudder (2017) describes the teaching of humility over two weeks to two classes of first-grade Christian school children, using devotional lessons based on humility-related children s books. Pre- and post-surveys were distributed to the teachers of the two classes and to the parents of the participating children, as well as to those in two comparison classes (that did not receive the humility-focused devotional lessons). The children were also interviewed one-on-one in order to complete a self-evaluation survey to 4 The university does offer other, separate undergraduate and graduate courses in Intercultural Communication, but the ICC for Ts course sections take the for Teachers emphasis seriously. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 22

29 assess their own behavior and how others close to them would assess their behavior (p. 61). Humility was operationalized as being morals-focused, others-focused, and using self-focused regulation, and Yonker et al. (2017) found a tendency toward significance with children in the humility groups demonstrating increased levels of others-focus, morals-focus, and self-regulation than children who did not experience the teaching on humility (p. 66). Their discussion declares that their results also show that devotional lessons on important Christian character traits can improve children s practice of humility, especially for those children who tend to have the personality traits of Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (p. 66). In short, as Yonker et al. (2017) were able to find a measurable difference between humility intervention and comparison groups (p. 67), Christian teachers of different types may perhaps be encouraged to consider incorporating the teaching of virtues, such as humility, into their own courses as appropriate. Turning to TESOL, I have not been able to locate any specific articles or research on virtues in ESL/EFL education, but I discovered an ESL curriculum on virtues created by the Southern Ontario Cooperative of ESL Ministries (SOCEM). The sets of lessons themselves were revised and expanded (SOCEM, 2014) and placed online so that any teacher wishing to adapt or use them for ESL classes may do so. More specifically, however, The Virtues is a series of ESL lessons designed with ESL programs in churches in mind (SOCEM, 2010, p. 2). As Yung (2015) describes it, The Virtues consists of a series of 14 topical units and a total of 39 lessons (p. 11). Individual lessons include readings, exercises, topics for speaking and conversation, as well as some homework and short writing tasks. Nine of the unit topics are virtues and the other five unit topics are festivals and holidays such as Christmas and Easter (Yung, 2015, p. 11). The virtues addressed are contentment, courage, forgiveness, honesty, hope, humility, joy, love, and wisdom. Each lesson comes with teacher s notes and student handouts, and each set of lessons revolves around five distinct sections, outlined as follows: the initial Life section centres on creating community and reviewing previous work. the Life to Topic category introduces the unit topic and how to make it relevant to students lives. the Topic section includes pre-reading, reading, and post-reading activities, such as class or partner discussion of the background, for students to understand and engage the topic (SOCEM, 2010, p. 4). the Topic to Life focus is on applying the unit topic to students lives through discussion questions, mini grammar lessons, writing, and other activities, such as role plays, in order to help students use English in discussing the topic and in real life situations. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 23

30 the final Life section includes homework to help students reflect on the virtue and apply it to their lives. (SOCEM, 2010, pp. 4-5) The Virtues lessons, as a series, start with a world culture thread, and then move to a more North American one, and finally to a Biblical focus (SOCEM, 2010, p. 4). Teachers using these lesson plans are encouraged to go through the above sections as they use the lessons with their students. Among the principles behind this curriculum, Yung (2015) states, we recognize that the virtues are universal and human themes and that each culture has a lot to say about them. We would like to mine the wisdom of other cultures and welcome their perspectives (p. 11). With an emphasis on English language skills, behind the design are also language learning principles that state that pragmatic components such as sociolinguistic, interactional and cultural competence are just as important as linguistic components such as grammar and pronunciation (SOCEM, 2010, p. 2). These principles reflect the point from Hinkel (2014) noted earlier, that effective language instruction should incorporate the connections between language and culture. As a result, The Virtues curriculum is introduced in ICC for Ts as one option for incorporating materials that address values and virtues in ESL/EFL classes in North America or abroad. Seven Christian Virtues for ICC for Ts With the background above, I would now like to outline seven Christian virtues for the ICC for Ts course and how I incorporate (or plan to incorporate) them. At this point some virtues are perhaps more easily addressed in the course, and I will begin with those. By Christian virtues I simply mean virtues that hold special importance for Christians, mostly because they are highlighted throughout the Bible. 5 Accordingly, I will briefly introduce seven virtues, note some relevant Scriptures, make connections to intercultural communication, and share resources that might be used to include these topics in the ICC for Ts and/or an ESL/EFL course. While several of the virtues overlap with some common ones, including those in the SOCEM (2014) lesson plans, these seven virtues were chosen as particularly relevant to ICC for Ts. 5 As one reviewer of this article noted, people often think of specifically Christian virtues such as faith, hope, and love, in contrast to virtues that people more generally would affirm, like humility and hospitality. This article discusses virtues more generally, similar to the way the SOCEM (2014) materials do, which seems appropriate for most ESL/EFL contexts. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 24

31 1. Hospitality Hospitality is the generous welcome of and provision for visitors, including strangers. This virtue is seen rather negatively in Genesis 19, where Lot offered to provide for the men of Sodom, but also more positively in the Luke 24:13ff. account of Jesus walking with and teaching two disciples on the road to Emmaus and then breaking bread with them. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling, 1 Peter 4:9 tells us, while Hebrews 13:2 says we are to do so even to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. 6 Teachers may not know who our students are or will be, but we can still welcome and support them in various helpful ways. In the second and foreign language literature, Christian authors Smith and Carvill (2000) argue that hospitality must shape the spirit and manner in which learners welcome, acquire, and respond to the foreign language and culture (p. 88). In addition, they believe hospitality means a stranger also will be given loving attention (Smith & Carvill, 2000, p. 91). In our first ICC for Ts meeting on campus, I provide snacks for students, which we enjoy together at the break, roughly half way through our three-hour evening class. I then use this as an opportunity to discuss food and culture, and I invite students to sign up if they would like to contribute and have snacks together each week during the semester. Students might bring snacks from a particular culture, while other times it is an eclectic spread. The point is that students are learning to show hospitality to one another, and to think about providing a hospitable environment for their ESL/EFL classes and students. Beyond welcome and provision, however, Stratman (2015) has indicated that recognition plays a key role in hospitality in the classroom, and this is something ESL/EFL teachers will need to navigate with their students names. In contexts where service learning is not unusual, it may be possible to help ESL students show hospitality to others in various ways through English. An example of this would be having pairs of students visit with people in hospitals or retirement homes, where they might slowly build relationships with those they are practicing their English with over a semester. On many college or university campuses groups occasionally host festivals or special outreaches for students and staff. I have participated in one related to Valentine s Day, for example. The point is to help students practise their English by showing generous hospitality to others, and reflecting 6 All Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011). Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 25

32 this virtue in culturally acceptable ways in the contexts where they are learning the language. This can be true whether or not students are Christian, or interact with Christians. In ICC for Ts, a key focus on hospitality is for the stranger. In the first week I use a Christians and Intercultural Communication PowerPoint presentation to introduce examples of culture and language in the Bible, from Genesis 11:1-19, Acts 2:1-13, and Revelation 7:9-12, noting that the Holy Spirit does not help everyone to speak the same language, but rather enables the multitude in heaven to encompass people from every nation, tribe, people group, and language. Special attention is paid to Old Testament laws dealing with foreigners (e.g., Exodus 23:9), God s care for foreigners (Psalm 146:9a), and various narratives between Babel and Pentecost, with God s people interacting with and dealing with the Other (foreigners), including Rahab, Ruth, Daniel, Jonah, the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42). One of the early assignments is for students to complete a one-hour Prayer Project, when they are encouraged to revisit one of these narratives and talk with God about their relationships with different Others, near or far. Since many ESL/EFL teachers are the Other for their students, it is important for them to reflect as Christians on showing hospitality. What is considered hospitable is deeply cultural, and teachers need to discover what is appropriate in their instructional contexts. In teaching at the college level in China many years ago, I regularly hosted groups of my students by taking them out to lunch or dinner. In the U.S., my family and I have occasionally hosted my classes at our home. Even if these types of options are not possible, teachers can hopefully use their office hours and leisure time to show students and colleagues hospitality, perhaps over coffee or tea together. As my ICC for Ts students have noted, taking time to be available to our students, colleagues, and others is hospitable, especially in cultures that value availability and flexibility, and where people do not mind being interrupted from their activities and routines when others need assistance, encouragement, and information. 2. Compassion Closely connected to hospitality to the stranger is compassion, the virtue that is in essence a type of love which reflects yet goes beyond sympathy to show concern for others in their predicament, suffering, or weakness (Roberts, 2007). In the PowerPoint presentation noted earlier, it is clear that the hospitality shown both to God s people (by, e.g., Rahab or the Good Samaritan) and by Jesus himself (e.g., towards the Samaritan woman) often includes Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 26

33 compassion. The Old Testament is clear that The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made (Psalm 145:9). In the New Testament we repeatedly see Jesus having compassion on those he interacted with (e.g., Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 20:34). Ephesians 4:32 states, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you, and Colossians 3:12 tells Christians to clothe ourselves with compassion. Sometimes, as in John 11, when Jesus was deeply moved and showed compassion to Mary and Martha before raising Lazarus from the dead, compassion may be hard to express verbally. Compassion means that one s heart goes out to someone else, Roberts (2007, p. 183) wrote. In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), Roberts (2007) believes we learn not only about God s compassion (since the father is God), but we also have a model for our compassion toward one another (p. 187). Yet there is also a clear connection with one s neighbour: When I am compassionate in the most centrally Christian manner, I am compassionate toward a neighbor, some individual or group of individuals with whom I have to do (Roberts, 2007, p. 196). In ICC for Ts, we note that often the Other is our neighbour, someone in our life with whom we relate, whether or not we actually live next to or near one another. In ESL/EFL, students may be both the stranger and the neighbour. Ways that teachers can help students to show compassion to others include helping them learn what to say when they hear about someone s death, medical issue, or other struggle or weakness, and how to share about their own trauma. Wolpow, Johnson, Hertel, and Kincaid (2011) offer teachers strategies for helping their students overcome trauma in public schools. In the classroom, as Medley (2012) advocates, teachers can create a safe environment and clear, regular routines that offer compassion to students who struggle (see also Medley, 2017). Teachers can also display and teach compassion by example when we offer encouragement, empathy, forgiveness, and sympathy to our students and colleagues, modelling what to say, when, where, and how. In ICC for Ts, I hope the course encourages and exhibits compassion through the weekly devotional, when we consider a Scripture passage and what it teaches us about culture, education, and intercultural communication. In addition, the class shares praises, prayer requests, and personal updates with one another, and we learn to support each other in prayer, hopefully living out Galatians 6:2: Carry each other s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ. We live in a world where media often tell us there is compassion fatigue. As Christian teachers, may we always reflect compassion for our students and other neighbours. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 27

34 3. Contrition The next virtue, contrition, is sincere remorse which recognizes one has offended God. It goes beyond regret to concede that the problem is not just with some action or deed one has done, but instead with oneself. Roberts (2007) puts it this way: It s a mark of contrition that its object is not directly the illicit deed or thought, but the self (p. 100). A detailed Biblical example helps us understand contrition. After being confronted by the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12, following his adultery with Bathsheba and killing of Uriah, King David confesses in verse 13 that he had sinned against the Lord. For several days David pleaded with God to save his sick child s life, yet the child died. When asked by his attendants why he carried on after the child s death, in verses David recounts that he had fasted and wept because he thought the Lord might be gracious to him and spare the child, but since God didn t, there was nothing he could do. This example reflects Roberts (2007) point that Contrition is characterized by confident hope in God s mercy, since one recognizes God as benevolent and a source of help, as well as angry and offended (p. 104). In Psalm 51 by David we have a beautiful prayer of confession reflecting such contrition, as well as his trust in God. ICC for Ts is not usually a context for sin, but it is often a conduit for God to point out students need for contrition at times. For example, as students read about arrogant portrayals of Westerners abroad expecting others to use their language, English, and how that seems inappropriate (e.g., in Livermore, 2009, another textbook), many students have confessed in class or in online discussion threads that they have been guilty of such attitudes and actions and recognized the problem in themselves. The fact that they have shared these perspectives with the class is a sign, I hope, of their trust in God s mercy and help, in addition to admitting their offense. I am not sure, however, how one might address contrition in an ESL/EFL context, especially if the students are not Christian or open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. One possibility, though, is that the SOCEM (2014) lesson plans on Forgiveness may create opportunities to discuss contrition with students, since those lessons include a number of stories of forgiveness, including Corrie ten Boom s and parables of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35) and the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). Such lessons might well lead to discussions of contrition, and might be accepted in church ESL classes, for example. Recent ICC for Ts students have offered additional ways to incorporate contrition into ESL/EFL classes. One suggested teaching conflict management skills and the English required to Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 28

35 practise them. Another shared that she uses the teaching of letter writing in order to help students process grief, which basically involves expressing your true feelings, asking for forgiveness for your own part, and extending forgiveness to those who have wronged you. She noted this works well with short stories where characters experience loss and model this process. Yet another student declared that the human tendency is often to blame everyone but ourselves. We tend to minimize our mistakes and emphasize the sins of others. He believes that helping our students acknowledge personal guilt through lessons on forgiveness can lead to contrition and help people move beyond grudges that run deep and can last long. Finally, in classes with learners from different cultural backgrounds, discussions, readings, and carefully selected video clips can prompt the correction of misunderstandings between students and enable reflection on previous actions and thinking, and potentially lead to a change of mind and/or behaviour. 4. Humility Related to but separate from contrition is humility, which Roberts (2007) defines as not being overly proud of oneself, yet nonetheless having a self-confidence in one s abilities. Proverbs 22:4 states, Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honour and life. Philippians 2:3 teaches, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. After encouraging younger people to submit to their elders, 1 Peter 5:5 commands, All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble. For ICC for Ts, Adeney s (1995) comment that A humble spirit of openness to God and the stranger may be our most valuable asset in a foreign culture confirms the value of humility as a virtue to cultivate (p. 28). Yonker, Wielard, Vos, and Tudder (2017) observed: References to humility can be traced back thousands of years. Most of the early references to humility stem from religious writings from the Bible to the Quran to Buddhist and Hindu writings (p. 55). In working with young children, their intervention drew upon children s literature shared in morning devotional messages, which students later reflected on by writing in their faith journals. Teachers would also provide reality-based feedback for students during the week on what behaviors the teacher observed that were in line with humility or were deviating from the essence of it (p. 62). Breaking down the concept of a virtue like humility, into morals-focused (e.g., The student tells the truth. ), others-focused (e.g., The student helps others. ), and self-focused regulation (e.g., Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 29

36 the student doesn t boast or interrupt others), in their surveys also seemed to be a useful strategy (p. 63), which might be adapted in teaching this and additional virtues in other contexts. In ICC for Ts we often discuss the fact that the same action may reflect different meanings in different cultures. For example, one discussion of high- versus low-context communication pointed out that if a child is being reprimanded, looking someone in the eye in North America is expected and considered respectful. If the child is not looking at the person talking, they might hear something like, Look at me when I m talking to you! Yet a Korean American student pointed out that in Korea that same action would be seen as a challenge or insult, and the best way to respond when being reprimanded is to look down or away. She noted that doing so reflects humility and, we might add, could be taken as a sign of contrition. The point is that humility may be reflected in different languages and cultures in different ways. When I was living in Japan, for example, I was a professor at a well-known university. However, following the custom, when people asked what I did, I said I was a teacher. When they asked where and I explained, they would then usually say, Oh, you re a professor. This was the humble way for me to share about myself and my work in that status-oriented culture. Both TESOL teacher educators and ESL/EFL teachers would do well to learn from Baurain s (2017) essay on imitating the humility of Christ in language teaching. Following a detailed discussion on the temptation of pride for all teachers (and especially Christian English language teachers), Baurain introduces the imperative of humility and draws upon Philippians 2 to reflect on the imitation of Christ. The lessons for teachers, Baurain (2017) argues, are for us to learn to step down (taking the position of a servant), step away (letting our students be at the centre of our classes), and step forward (obeying Christ even in the face of criticism of our faith). That is how we can develop and practice Christlike humility with our students and colleagues, in our classrooms and professional lives (Baurain, 2017, p. 126). For ESL/EFL classes, the SOCEM (2014) lesson plans on Humility are a great resource for introducing and discussing this Christian virtue. They begin with definitions and consider proverbs and famous quotes from around the world about humility, and then they look at some stories and case studies. Finally, the lessons consider John 13:1-17 where Jesus washes his disciples feet, and Philippians 2:5-9, describing the mindset of Christ Jesus. A final potential resource is chapter six in Baehr (2015), which discusses intellectual humility in education. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 30

37 5. Gratitude The virtue of gratitude is about being thankful and showing appreciation for kindness received. Roberts (2007) describes the conditions for gratitude as follows: The situation is that of two parties and a good. One of the parties is the beneficiary, one is the benefactor; and the good is a gift from one to the other. Gratitude is the beneficiary s concern-based construal of the situation in these terms. (p. 143) Gratitude means we recognize a good we have received, and we realize that we are the beneficiary of it. A perfect example of Christian gratitude is thankfulness to God for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life (Roberts, 2007, p. 144). Colossians 3:16 reflects this, encouraging believers to Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your heart. The Bible also encourages believers to come before God with thanksgiving (Psalm 95:2), which should flow from each of us (Ephesians 5:4). In ICC for Ts students learn about ways that different cultures and languages experience and express gratitude. In many cultures gratitude is communicated through gifts of various kinds. I believe gratitude is a virtue that I need to think carefully about incorporating into the course more explicitly, in order to develop activities that will help (student) teachers understand and live out the virtue of gratitude. For example, in both teacher training and in ESL/EFL, sharing with students ways that we are grateful for them and all that we learn from them could help them to reflect on ways that they are thankful for experiences, gifts, people, opportunities, etc. For ESL/EFL, the SOCEM (2014) Thanksgiving holiday lesson plans introduce the American and Canadian backgrounds for these holidays and use readings to highlight various traditions. They also encourage students to express what they are thankful for and are one way that ESL/EFL teachers might create opportunities to discuss gratitude. At various levels of proficiency, ESL/EFL teachers can also help their students learn to express thanks and gratitude in specific ways and contexts. For example, teachers might ask students to reflect on someone special in their life that they particularly appreciate, such as a parent, sibling, coach, friend, or teacher. Students could note a few things that they especially appreciate and value about that person, and then verbally share a summary of those points with a partner or small group. Next teachers could help students compose written thank you notes or s to those people, which could then be presented to those special people in order to extend students gratitude to them. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 31

38 This is one simple yet valuable way to incorporate examples of and discussions on the virtue of gratitude in ESL/EFL classes. 6. Hope Hope is the belief that one s future includes good prospects. As Roberts (2007) outlines it, Hope is a construal of the future in some terms, and Christian hope is the construal of our future in terms of God s promises of eternal life and righteousness (p. 155). Psalm 62:5 reminds us, Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Christian hope thus comes from God and involves trusting in God and following him faithfully in the present and as we head into the future. Romans 15:13 states, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Discussing the ways that languages and cultures express and view hope is one way to consider this virtue and its various expressions across cultures. Unfortunately, thus far hope is not a virtue that I have emphasized in the ICC for Ts curriculum to date. I plan to do so in the future, however. A reviewer of this article pointed out that hope also deals with expectation, and since TESOL students learn about dispositions, one that is often focused on is the expectation that all English language learners can learn English. ESL/EFL students in various contexts sometimes experience less success in their English learning than they would like, but ESL/EFL teachers are trained to teach in such a way that the expectation is communicated that their students can and will indeed learn English. In ESL/EFL courses of beginning and intermediate levels, we often teach students about hope as they learn verb tenses, to express their hopes for the future. The SOCEM (2014) lesson plans for Hope are a potential teaching resource, drawing on a number of famous quotations, discussion tasks, and readings that include a story on The Power of Hope (about a tutor teaching nouns and adverbs!) and Bible passages from Job and Luke 24:13-35, Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Christian teachers know that we have been justified through faith and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). As such, our hope does not put us to shame, because God s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). May our lives reflect such hope as we incorporate this virtue into our classes. In my most recent ICC for Ts course, one of the students described lesson plans on hope that she developed for intermediate level English students who are refugees in Houston, Texas. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 32

39 Like the SOCEM lesson plans, hers included discussions, songs, video clips, and readings. For example, a TED talk on Overcoming Hopelessness by Nick Vujicic, a Christian evangelist and speaker who was born with no arms or legs, was used to focus on the value and dignity of every human being and to note the great good that can come in life despite its many challenges and difficulties. A UNICEF photo series Finding Hope 7 was used to provide a global perspective and to help students reflect on and consider hope for their own lives and circumstances. 7. Joy Joy is the seventh and final virtue I would like to highlight for intercultural communication. While the world thinks of joy as great happiness with pleasure, as a Christian virtue Roberts (2007, p. 116) describes it as one kind of spiritual pleasure. The Christian virtue of joy is not the product of one s circumstances, but rather a wonderful feeling that results from one s knowledge of and experience with God through Jesus Christ. We know from Galatians 5:22 that joy is one fruit of the Spirit, and Christians are commanded to rejoice in the Lord (Philippians 3:1). In the beautiful John 15 vine and branches passage, Jesus encourages his disciples to keep his commands and to remain in his love. Then he declares, I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (John 15:11). Even amidst sorrow or suffering, God s people know from Nehemiah 8:10 that the joy of the Lord is our strength. We can call on God to give us joy when we trust in him, as the Psalmist (86:4) does. In terms of intercultural communication, Proverbs 15:23 teaches us, A person finds joy in giving an apt reply and how good is a timely word! The challenge of course is that what is considered an apt reply in a particular situation is very cultural, as is a timely word. ICC for Ts helps students learn about culture, language, and nonverbal communication, as well as communication styles, pragmatics, and other issues to help teachers and students analyze such situations, on individual, community, national, and other levels. In doing so my hope is that students in the course will experience Christian joy. Once more I confess that this virtue is not one I have thus far explicitly incorporated into the ICC for Ts course, though I believe that I have glimpsed students joy that is beyond their circumstances and our class relationships. In the online section of the course one semester, graduate students were given the chance to reflect on which of the seven virtues they had particularly experienced or been challenged by, and one 7 Available at Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 33

40 participant wrote, I ve found a lot of joy in this course through the celebration of culture and the different interactions and stories we share in our discussion boards. I hope to learn to bring Christian joy more to the forefront of my on campus and online sections of ICC for Ts. For ESL/EFL, thankfully The Virtues includes a series of lessons on Joy (SOCEM, 2014), which use pair work to discuss and define joy, as well as to consider different proverbs and sayings on it. The readings there include Ecclesiastes 3 (A Time for Everything), and there are discussions of various idioms reflecting joy. In church ESL classes, teachers might discuss the joy of the Lord as the Christian s strength, and sing the worship chorus that communicates that truth, or listen to one of the more recent pop culture versions (from, e.g., Rend Collective). The student I mentioned above paired her lesson plans on hope with two on joy. These included having her ESL students consider definitions of and famous quotes on joy, plus watch a short video on a theology of joy from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture (available at and discuss and reflect on Seppälä s (2013) blog The Science Behind the Joy of Sharing Joy. These are just some great ideas that might be adapted or spark yet other possibilities for teaching the virtue of joy in ESL/EFL. As language learning is a difficult, long, and involved process, one ICC for Ts student observed that joy helps learners and teachers by making the small day-to-day moments enjoyable in class and out. Final Reflections on Christian Virtues and Intercultural Communication In order to offer a summary for teachers in ICC for Ts to begin to think about potential ways to incorporate any of the above seven Christian virtues into their ESL/EFL classes, I created an At A Glance summary, included as an Appendix, where the above virtues are listed alphabetically, with a short definition and focus, some related Bible passages, and potential teaching resources. Readers might also use this chart as they attempt to incorporate these virtues into their lessons and the curricula for their own teacher training and/or ESL/EFL courses. One issue I have not explicitly addressed here is how teachers and students might work to internalize and thus exhibit the virtues I have discussed. That is beyond the scope of this article, but as I have alluded to several times, I can attest to glimpses of my ICC for Ts students displaying, or reporting on growth in, these virtues. Also, while I teach Christian students at my university, I believe that others working with students from diverse religious backgrounds at other Christian schools could potentially benefit from incorporating virtues into their relevant Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 34

41 ESL/EFL and/or teacher training courses. In short, while the seven virtues I have outlined are Christian because they are highlighted in the Bible, they are not limited to Christianity, and thus could also be considered appropriate for those of other backgrounds and traditions. While Baehr s (2015) e-book deals primarily with intellectual virtues in kindergarten through grade 12 teaching contexts, it is nonetheless an insightful resource for all teachers who wish to focus more on virtues in their teaching. I highly recommend chapter 35, where Baehr (2015) discusses integrating virtues language into one s instruction, including what to avoid, opportunities to practice the virtues, and giving virtues-based feedback. As the above discussion reveals, the first several of the seven virtues are more clearly integrated into my ICC for Ts course at this stage, but the last few need to be addressed more explicitly. This is thus a work in progress. 8 One further limitation here is that I have not yet incorporated any specific assessment where I might help students reflect on their learning of these virtues during the ICC for Ts course, although authors like Curren and Kotzee (2014) suggest there may be such a possibility, in terms of what they call routine evaluation of student virtue-related learning (p. 266). So far, I have seen a number of virtues and issues related to them come to the fore through students written reflections in the course s two Prayer Projects, but the focus there is not on the virtues themselves. Conclusion This article briefly considered virtues and intercultural communication, drawing on principles from cross-cultural and virtue ethics. It has also noted the importance of virtues in education and described one ESL/EFL curriculum that focuses on virtues. Finally, it considered seven key Christian virtues, outlining ways I incorporate some of them in my Intercultural Communication for Teachers course, while noting that I still need to develop means to bring some of these virtues more explicitly into the curriculum. My hope is that readers will benefit from this overview and learn about and consider ways that they might incorporate Christian virtues into their TESOL teacher training and/or ESL/EFL courses. As my future students consider virtues and intercultural communication, I look forward to receiving additional 8 Recent curriculum changes in our program mean that I am developing a new iteration of the ICC for Ts course, entitled Ethics, Values, and Intercultural Communication for TESOL Professionals. Virtues should continue to be of particular interest and assistance in this new version of the course. Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 35

42 feedback on and suggestions concerning these virtues and the new intercultural communication course, so that I may revisit and hopefully improve these efforts when I teach it each year. Acknowledgements An early version of this article was presented at the CELT 2016 Seoul conference at Yonsei University in Korea. I am grateful for the feedback I received there, and from my ICC for Ts students who have read revised versions of it since then. Reviewers and the editors also offered useful suggestions, which have helped enhance and improve this expanded, published version. References Adeney, B. T. (1995). Strange virtues: Ethics in a multicultural world. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Arthur, J. (2010a). Of good character: Exploration of virtues and values with 3-25 year-olds. Exeter, U.K.: Imprint Academic. Arthur, J. (Ed.). (2010b). Citizens of character: New directions in character and values education. Exeter, U.K.: Imprint Academic. Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Cooke, S., Brown, E., & Carr. D. (2015). The good teacher: Understanding virtues in practice. Birmingham, U.K.: University of Birmingham. Austin, M. W. (2012). Compassion. In M. W. Austin & R. D. Geivett (Eds.), Being good: Christian virtues for everyday life (pp ). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Austin, M. W., & Geivett, R. D. (Eds.). (2012). Being good: Christian virtues for everyday life. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Baehr, J. (2013). Educating for intellectual virtues: From theory to practice. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 47, doi: / Baehr, J. (2015). Cultivating good minds: A philosophical and practical guide to educating for intellectual virtues. Long Beach, CA: Educating for Intellectual Virtues. [An e-book at: Baehr, J. (Ed.). (2016). Intellectual virtues and education: Essays in applied virtue epistemology. New York: Routledge. Baurain, B. (2017). Imitating the humility of Christ in language teaching. In C. L. Pierson & W. Bankston (Eds.), Thinking theologically about language teaching: Christian perspectives on an educational calling (pp ). Carlisle, U.K.: Langham Global Library. Bridges, J. (2016). The blessing of humility: Walk within your calling. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress. Curren, R., & Kotzee, B. (2014). Can virtue be measured? Theory and Research in Education, 12, doi: / Davis, D. H., & Wadell, P. J. (2016). Educating lives for Christian wisdom. International Journal of Christianity and Education, 20, doi: / Dow, P. E. (2013). Virtuous minds: Intellectual character development. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Dresser, N. (2005). Multicultural manners: Essential rules of etiquette for the 21 st century. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Gallagher, T. (2001). The values orientations method: A tool to help understand cultural differences. Journal of Extension, 39(6). Retrieved from Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 36

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44 Seppälä, E. M. (2013, July 15). The science behind the joy of sharing joy. Psychology Today. Retrieved from Smith, D. I. (2006). Editorial: The gift of the stranger revisited. Journal of Christianity and Foreign Languages, 7, 3-9. Smith, D. I. (2009). Learning from the stranger: Christian faith and cultural diversity. Grand Rapids: Baker. Smith, D. I., & Carvill, B. (2000). The gift of the stranger: Faith, hospitality, and foreign language learning. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Southern Ontario Cooperative of ESL Ministries. (2010). The virtues: An ESL curriculum with life topics and biblical content for use in churches. Toronto: Author. Southern Ontario Cooperative of ESL Ministries. (2014). ESL lessons based on virtues. Toronto: Author. Retrieved from Stratman, J. (2015). What s in a name: The place of recognition in a hospitable classroom. International Journal of Christianity and Education, 19, doi: / Stringer, D. M., & Cassiday, P. A. (2003). 52 activities for exploring values differences. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. Wang, Y. (2012). Differences between Sino-American cultural values from intercultural communication perspective. Proceedings of the 2012 second international conference on business computing and global informatization (pp ). New York: IEEE Xplore Digital Library. doi: /bcgin Wintergerst, A. C., & McVeigh, J. (2011). Tips for teaching culture: Practical approaches to intercultural communication. White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman. Wolpow, R., Johnson, M. M., Hertel, R., & Kincaid, S. O. (2011). The heart of learning and teaching: Compassion, resiliency, and academic success. Olympia, WA: Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Compassionate Schools. Retrieved from pdf. Yonker, J. E., Wielard, C. J., Vos, C. L., & Tudder, A. M. (2017). Teaching humility in firstgrade Christian school children. International Journal of Christianity and Education, 21, doi: / Yung, J. (2015). The virtues: A curriculum integrating life and faith. CELEA News, 7(2), Zhu, H. (2014). Intercultural communication. In W. Li (Ed.), Applied linguistics (pp ). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Michael Lessard-Clouston (michael.lessard-clouston@biola.edu) is a Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics & TESOL at Biola University, where he co-ordinates the M.A. in applied linguistics and teaches in the M.A. TESOL. His interests include corpus linguistics, culture, and vocabulary studies. He is author of Second Language Acquisition Applied to English Language Teaching (TESOL Press, 2018). Lessard-Clouston (2018) Incorporating Virtues in an Intercultural Communication Course 38